


The Future Waits Without Us

by amberswansong



Series: The Future Waits Without Us [1]
Category: Repo! The Genetic Opera (2008)
Genre: Established Relationship, F/M, Funeral, Incest, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-11-28
Updated: 2009-11-27
Packaged: 2017-10-03 21:45:20
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 3,734
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22569
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/amberswansong/pseuds/amberswansong
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Fuck Dad and his cast of thousands, anyway.  Think anybody would notice if I didn't show up?"</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The Future Waits Without Us

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "Fuck Dad and his cast of thousands, anyway. Think anybody would notice if I didn't show up?"

She could name the day they first made love. The day, the date, the very year; an anniversary of sorts in their long and tumultuous relationship. They'd been _fucking_ for years; it was nothing more than sibling rivalry in a new dimension, struggling for superiority and attention and power. Who could get the other off faster. Who could get off first, leaving the other panting and frustrated as they jumped apart for opening doors, footsteps, voices coming in their direction. The very existence of it; it was something they had that Pavi did not, that Pavi did not even know about.

They had buried their father in the morning. The funeral was exactly the sort of huge public spectacle that Rotti Largo had adored. His body had lay in state for days, a river of people drifting past it, filling Sanitarium Square, lapping against the GeneCo building. Mag's bier lay alongside, a second island of flowers and feathers. It was as much a circus as the famed Italian Renaissance faire that had taken place on the night of the Genetic Opera itself.

The crowd drifted, drinking their fill of pageantry and excess, telling wild stories of Rotti's generosity and his ruthlessness in the same breath. Luigi was twitchy, restless. Amber kept her hand on his arm, calming and stilling at once, and damn what the press or Pavi thought. She _needed_ to touch him as much as he needed the touch; the only solid ground in the flood.

The ceremony was long, painfully so. An exhausting line of distinguished speakers, none of whom had really known Rotti Largo at all. Luigi whispered in her ear, a combination of creative insults about their honored guests and filthy suggestions about what he'd much rather be doing. She broke down completely at one point, and he escorted her from the room, playing the considerate older brother to the hilt. They fucked in the bathroom against the wall, doing nothing more complicated than hiking her skirt up and shoving his trousers to his hips, just enough for the contact. She wrapped her legs around him and bit her lip bloody trying not to cry out.

It was enough to keep them decent for a few hours, though she kept catching him staring at her out of the corner of her eye. He looked away every time she turned her head, and she couldn't take enough attention off the well-wishers to figure out what he was doing, but the pressure of his gaze left her skin crawling somewhere between discomfort and lust.

Finally, though, the pallbearers came forward and lifted the coffin. Some of the most powerful men in the world, Luigi and Pavi among them, carried her father's body to the carriage. Someone had found a pair of matched black horses somewhere. It suited the spectacle. The funeral became a parade, a procession, and her feet ached, slipping on the pavement. GeneCo was a weight on her shoulders heavier than the coffin, the leaden sky, the crowd. Her father's absence was a presence all its own. She realized she was crying and tried to stop.

_It hurts,_ she thought, not even sure if she meant her feet or her bitten lip or even her heart. The words of the old jingle, _Zydrate comes in a little glass vial,_ beat through her mind like a drunken swallow, banging into everything. Graverobber mouthed the words like an obscenity, his hands against her breasts and it seemed like sacrilege, thinking about that here, but the only other thing she could think of was Luigi's mouth on hers, a different kind of sacrilege. She wondered if she had any sacred places left, if that was why she disappointed her father. _You're not my daughter,_ the last words he'd ever said to her.

"You'd be surprised how much I am," she whispered. He didn't answer her, probably wouldn't even if he'd been able to. But Luigi and Pavi were now carrying him into the place where his schemings would at last be ended. Pavi was crying. Luigi looked slightly ill. He caught her eye. "Almost done," she mouthed at him, and he nodded. One final ceremony to endure.

The three of them converged together, one of Luigi's nervous gophers distributing the bouquets. It was heavy, mostly calla lilies and ivy, and Amber felt oddly like a bride on her brother's arm. The protest staggered through her head, _But Daddy's supposed to give me away, and here I am giving him away,_ and she was crying again as she lay the flowers on his grave. _Rottissimo Paviche Largo, Beloved Father, Savior of Millions,_ was etched into the marble over the dates. Luigi's hand was steady under her elbow as she bent.

And that was it. The tomb was sealed, and the first pair of the honor guard took their places. The tomb would be guarded day and night, at least at first. She had no doubt that the Zydrate of Rotti Largo would be an incredibly tempting target. Bronco was waiting with the car, she noticed with gratitude. She didn't think her ankles could handle much more walking.

"Is there anything else?" she asked, her voice shaking, as the door was closed and the car pulled away. "I can't remember the damned timetable any more."

"Si, bella, a little bit more," Pavi replied, petting her knee.

She groaned, sinking back into the seat. "Fuck Dad and his cast of thousands, anyway. Think anybody would notice if I didn't show up?"

"The fucking head of GeneCo?" Luigi snarled. "Yeah, I think they'd fucking well notice. They'd also notice if you turned up stoned, so don't even think it."

"I wasn't," she protested, even though she had been. Anything to end the endless.


	2. Naked, We are Suddenly Strange

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "You don't have to know anything. Just be. Do. Whatever."

"Do you think it would be believable if I fainted from grief?" she asked Luigi some hours later. She was a little bit drunker than she cared to admit, and he was warm under her fingertips. Sex in the bathroom felt like an eternity ago, and she wanted him - again, more, still; she wasn't sure. She wanted out.

"Prostrate from grief is a little Victorian," he said, "but that corset is probably pretty damned tight. So maybe."

She decided to take it under advisement for the time being. The head of GeneCo probably shouldn't faint in public anyway. Even from boredom, which struck her as much more likely.

Amber was actually rather closer to fainting than she cared to admit by the time she deemed it acceptable to make an exit. Out the door, down the hallway, into the elevator, and she staggered as the doors closed. Luigi glanced at her, then looked closer. "You look like shit," he said.

A horrified hand flew to her face, checking the edges.

"Not like that, for fuck's sake. You just look tired. Like you're going to fucking pass out."

"I might just," she admitted. The day had been nauseatingly long, and she still wasn't used to having to face the world without the benefit of a little glass vial.

"You're a fucking dainty Victorian lady, aren't you?" He stepped closer, bent down, and picked her up.

"What are you _doing?_" she demanded, clinging to his neck. "You're going to drop me!"

"I'm keeping you from falling over. Quit fucking wiggling, or I _will_ drop you."

Giving up, she leaned against his chest. Doubtless he would say something in the next moment that would remind her of what an asshole he was, but until then, he was warm and solid and comfortable.

"Are you going to carry me all the way to my room?" she asked when the elevator stopped and he didn't put her down.

"Yep," he said. "Can't have you keeling over in the hallway or whatever."

Luigi carried her down the hall, his steps echoing on the hardwood floor, muffled in fits and starts by intervening rugs. Amber pried her hands from her brother's neck long enough to open her door for him. It was easy not to think about the symbolism of being carried across the threshold in such a way when he dropped her unceremoniously on the bed, exactly as he'd done when she was small and had fallen asleep in the car on the way home from somewhere. She blinked up at him, half-expecting a rough peck on the forehead and the demand that she go to sleep, brat, because he sure as fuck wasn't going to read her some retarded story. He bent over just as she lifted her head, and their lips met in juxtaposition.

It somehow became a kiss, and not their standard duel with tongue and teeth, but an almost tender exploration of the inside of her mouth. His hand came down and lay along the line of her jaw, smooth skin and gentle pressure. It make her ache in a way she couldn't quite explain, and a soft little noise escaped her before she realized it.

Later on she thought it was perhaps the noise that had done it, sealed the moment like a spell, creating what would follow in an inevitable cascade. He kissed the corner of her mouth, across her face and down her neck, lapping at the ring of scars over her collarbones. He struggled with the corset for a moment before she had pity on him and showed him the trick to unlatching the front.

It was startling, Luigi undressing her. Their sex was about heat and power, always on the edge of discovery and exposure, and there was rarely time or inclination for exposing more than the absolutely necessary bits. Even playing with her bared tits while he fucked her was risky. The buttons on her shirt slipped open under his hand, baring her stomach, and he kissed his way down, coaxing her up to push the shirt off her shoulders and dropping it to the floor. Her skirt followed in short order. She reached up, teasing at his ascot, and he leaned in close enough that she could pull it loose and then off, tangling her fingers in his buttonholes, exploring the scarred chest she'd seen so many times. He groaned at the soft touch, too deliberate to tickle, tracing across his scars.

He pulled back, away from her reaching hands, and knelt beside her bed. He caught her feet in one hand and used the other to remove her dainty high heels. They made scarcely a sound as they hit the plush carpet. His hand slid up the length of her leg, Amber whimpering as the contact went from stocking to bared flesh, and unhooked the garters. "Why are your clothes so fucking complicated?" he demanded with a growl, rolling the flimsy thing down her leg, pausing at her ankle. She reached for a snappy comeback, decided she was too distracted by his hands, and gave up.

"I'm just a complicated girl," she sighed, arching her foot. "Luigi, what are you doing?"

"I'm fucking you. I'd think you'd be able to recognize it by now."

"Usually there aren't so many intervening steps."

"Yeah, well, we usually have to worry about interruptions - and now there's nobody here to stop us or even fucking care."

"What about Pavi?"

"Pavi?" He snorted. "Pavi'd _watch_. He's not going to goddamned well _stop_ us. 'My brother and sister should fuck,' for Christ's sake."

"Well, yes, but -"

"But what?"

"It just - I don't know."

"You don't have to know anything. Just be. Do. Whatever. Be the bitch in charge _tomorrow_, Amber. Today I had to bury my father, who thought I was a colossal failure, and did everything in his fucking power to prevent me from inheriting the thing I thought he was grooming me for, and I had to deal with the goddamned world staring at your tits and wondering if you had a brain in your head, and I just. Fucking. Want you. Okay?"

She nodded, not trusting her voice.

"Good."

His hands returned to her other stocking, gentle as before. His fingers on her thigh, and the soft little noise escaped her again, and he looked back up at her. The intensity in his eyes made her tremble.

This was suddenly not a game about power, his or hers; this was not just Amber's ability to lure anybody into her bed, even the one she shouldn't want to have. Luigi was staring at her like a man dying of thirst, or a junkie with a fix just out of reach. _He loves you,_ flashed across her consciousness for an earth-shaking second. _He's looking at you like that because he fucking **loves** you, and this is going to get insanely complicated if you don't stop him right now._

"Luigi -"

"Shut the fuck up, Amber," he said, and of course she must have misread the look in his eyes. She reached for his belt buckle.

He let her strip him of his pants and socks, and just stood there for a minute, watching her, as she looked him up and down, the patchwork puzzle of her memories solidifying into one complete shape for the first time.

"Now," she said, and lay back, spreading her bare legs for him.

"Now," he agreed, and he was pushing into her, and she whimpered, arching her hips to meet him. For once, they didn't have to worry about being quiet, and she discovered that Luigi was a moaner. He groaned into every thrust, every shift, his noises driving her even crazier, echoing in point and counterpoint, losing the porn-star polish of her normal bedroom behavior and driving her against him in desperate desire. He latched onto her hips and rolled, pulling her on top, letting her control the speed and depth of his strokes while he stroked her nipples, her stomach, teased her clit. There were words, suddenly, "Oh, God, Luigi," she whimpered, and he moaned her name in response, gasped it, chanted it like a benediction, swore with it, sacred to profane in the space of agonized syllables. "Yes, now," and she wasn't sure what she wanted now, but he was giving it to her anyway, somehow, exactly what she needed in the depths of her pleasure.

She screamed and he shuddered, and as she collapsed against him, she heard him say, "Mine," quite clearly.

She wanted to agree, or maybe argue, but she couldn't make her words work any more; couldn't do anything more than lay in his arms and breathe, and hope he didn't notice the tears sliding down her cheeks.

He fell asleep like that, still inside her. Eventually she slid to one side, watching him sleep, letting her mind drift over the long and complicated day. The soft knock on the door seemed inevitable, and she rose and pulled her robe on without coming completely out of her idle fantasies.

It was Pavi, of course; there was no one else in the world it could possibly be. He looked strained and tired even through her own face, and he was, amazingly, alone. "C-can I c-c-come in?" he asked, stumbling over the words. Too tired even to fake his ridiculous accent, to hide his stutter.

"I'd have thought you'd have a herd of sympathetic GENterns to fuss over you," she said, pitching her voice so it wouldn't carry.

"I sent th-them away."

She nodded, stepping aside to let him by. He closed the door behind him. He didn't say anything about the scattered clothing, or Luigi snoring, or anything at all, just followed her across the room, stepping out of his shoes and draping his suit jacket and vest across the back of a chair. Amber left her robe on the floor and slid between the sheets, scooting over to make room for him.

Still in most of his clothes, he started to get in next to her. "You're going to wrinkle the shit out of that if you sleep in it," she murmured. "Take it off."

He unbuttoned his shirt with nimble fingers, stepped out of his trousers, and climbed into bed. She leaned over and kissed his forehead. "Night, Paviche."

He smiled and patted her cheek.

It was enough.

\- fin


	3. Thrice Lovelier Shine the Things That Last

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "It was half-past nine on the morning after their father's funeral, and he had some questions he wanted answered."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I said "The Future Waits Without Us" was two parts, but Pavi pouted until I gave him his own part. This immediately follows ["The Future Waits Without Us"](http://amberswansong.livejournal.com/1155.html#cutid1) and ["Naked We Are Suddenly Strange."](http://amberswansong.livejournal.com/1385.html#cutid1) Also, this is for [](http://pellnell.livejournal.com/profile)[**pellnell**](http://pellnell.livejournal.com/).

Pavi Largo had woken in many unfamiliar bedrooms during his long and varied career as a stealer of hearts. This, however, was the first time in his adult life that he'd woken up nose-to-nose with his brother. Luigi had kicked the blankets off and was sprawled out, naked, snoring, completely on display. Amber was nowhere in sight. He glanced at the clock. It was half-past nine on the morning after their father's funeral, and he had some questions he wanted answered.

Pavi slipped out of bed, retrieving his discarded trousers from the floor. He hadn't said anything the previous night, but he'd realized certain things when Amber opened the door and had proved to be nude beneath her robe. His brother's current state of undress merely confirmed his suspicions.

Amber proved to be having coffee and croissants in the dining room. "Good morning," she said, giving him a strained smile.

"Good-a morning, bella." He snagged a cup and a pastry from the sideboard and reached for the silver coffeepot at Amber's elbow. "So," he said, settling into the chair next to her. "Would-a you like to tell the Pavi how-a long you and our-a brother have been ah - involved?"

"Oh, about twelve years." The look she awarded him was rather close to a smirk.

Pavi sputtered, narrowly avoiding spilling hot coffee on himself. "What?" He had suspected for some time that _something_ was going on, but not anything of that duration.

"Not all the time," she reassured him, leaning back in her chair. "Off and on, mostly off. Sort of serious for about - hm - three days." _Since Dad's death,_ lay unspoken between them.

"And you keep-a this a secret from-a the Pavi? I thought we did-a not have secrets, bella." He pouted at her.

"Luigi made me promise not to say anything, and you know how he is," she said with a graceful shrug.

"Sí." He started picking at his croissant with long elegant fingers. "The Pavi wants-a details. _Many_ details."

Amber smiled in exactly the same way she always did when she was about to talk about her sex life. Pavi loved to hear it; to watch his sister form word-pictures of her conquests, filthy words slipping past her shining lips. They told each other everything - or nearly everything, he supposed. It stung a little that she'd held something back from him for so long - but it was Luigi, and that knowledge wasn't something he would have been able to keep from teasing his brother about. The thought of them together was...enticing. He wondered if he could convince her to let him watch. "And what sorts of details do you want?"

"You know-a what the Pavi _really_ wants-a to know, sister."

As jaded as Amber was, she always pinked prettily when he asked that question, directly or indirectly. When he'd asked her about the Graverobber she favored, she'd dissolved into a fit of giggles and blushed bright red. He'd never actually gotten an answer; he filed it away to ask later. "You're his brother, Pavi," she said. "I'll just say that you have... certain things in common."

Pavi smirked. "And-a can he use it?"

The resulting smile was slow and lazy, complete with half-lidded eyes. "Oh, yes."

"Better than the Pavi?" and he wasn't trying to sound sulky, but it did anyway.

She smirked at him and didn't answer for a long minute. "Different than the Pavi," she said at last. "He's a greedy bastard, like you'd expect him to be, but by the time he's finished, you generally don't _care_. It's always a race, though, who gets off first." She picked up the coffee cup and examined the rim. "I usually win."

Pavi laughed. The mental image was still amazing, fighting on another level, naked and sweating but still competing. Competing with each other, rather than against, perhaps, with no one to know who won but the other. And him, now, perhaps. "It-a sounds like everybody a-wins."

"Everybody wins what?" Luigi growled, staggering into the room.

"The pleasure of your-a company, brother," Pavi purred.

Amber glanced up at the clock. "It's before ten and you're out of bed?"

"So are you," he pointed out. "What the hell is this world coming to?"

"It'll probably fall into the sun any day now. Coffee?"

"Fuck yeah, I want coffee."

Somewhat to Pavi's surprise, Amber actually got up and brought him a cup. A week before she would have told him to get it himself, and laughed - were they that different, now? Pavi pushed aside a pain that might have been jealousy. There was a simple enough explanation: their father was dead and buried. Everything _seemed_ different, but it was just novelty. They would get back to the business of living soon enough, and Luigi would have to get his own coffee and there would be insults at the breakfast table again instead of this peculiar consideration. Amber put her hand on Luigi's shoulder as she gave him the steaming cup, and he looked up at her with an expression that was almost tender. It was too much. "I hear-a you are fucking our-a sister," he said with a smirk.

Luigi's head whipped around and he glared. Pavi didn't miss the hurt in Amber's eyes; getting to both of them with a single sentence was quite a coup. "What the fuck business is it of yours?"

"Oh, nothing. The Pavi just-a found it interesting."

"I told you not to tell him," he snarled up at Amber, who reclaimed her seat with a pout.

"I didn't tell him, he figured it out," she replied in that whiny tone of voice that he knew grated on Luigi's nerves.

He rolled his eyes at her, grabbed the coffee cup a little too hard, and swore as the hot liquid splashed on his hand. She did laugh at that, and he called her a heartless bitch. Pavi relaxed a little as she danced back to her seat, still a-twinkle with amusement. Their father was gone, but it was still his family - arrogant bastard brother, selfish bitch sister, and himself, finally as pretty as he'd always wanted to be. Pavi went back to picking at his croissant and contemplating sneaking a camera into Amber's room.

\- fin


End file.
